TASK-BASED SYLLABUS DESIGN: ADVANCED ESL

FOR TOURISM AND CUSTOMER RELATIONS

Tanis Leah Sawkins

B.A. University of British Columbia, 1988 Dip. TESL University of British Columbia, 1991

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

in the

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

a Tanis Leah Sawkins 1996

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

March 1996

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photography

or other means, without permission of the author.

NAME

APPROVAL

Tanis Leah Sawkins

DEGREE Master of Arts

TITLE Task-Based Syllabus Design: Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations

EXAMINING COMMITTEE:

Chair Mike Manley-Casimir

Gloria Sampson Senior Supervisor

Andre Obadia Member

Dr. Alice Wong, 6298-~rlington Street, Vancouver. B. C. V5S 3N6 External Examiner

Date:

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to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or

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without my written permission.

Title of Thesis/Project/Extended Essay

Task-Based Syllabus Design: Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations

Author:

(Name)

March I ; 1146 (Date)

ABSTRACT

An overview of two theoretical areas of specialization in Teaching

English as a Second Language (TESL) is presented: integrating language and

content @LC) and recent trends in syllabus design in language education. ILC

is examined through the lens of each of three theoretical influences: Krashen's

monitor model, Cummin's language proficiency model and the language

socialization perspective. Issues in syllabus design are addressed using Kuhn's

(1970) notion of paradigm shift. The conventional paradigm and an emerging

paradigm in language education are discussed using Long and Crookes' (1992)

typology. A model, task-based syllabus design, which stems from the emerging

paradigm provides the basis for the design of a new course at Vancouver

Community College--Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations. An

overview of the content-based thematic units and samples of actual tasks are

provided. Finally, the process of designing a syllabus by adapting a task-based

model for integrating language and content is reflected upon. Teacher

reflection, as case-study research, is a valuable tool for learning about complex

issues. Although I was not able to adopt a task-based model quite as task-based

theorists envision, I feel it was invaluable to me as a teacherlplanner; the model

served as a standard for imitation and comparison.

DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my mother, Maureen Claire Sawkins, who as

a teacher and colleague, has encouraged me from the beginning of this project.

She is an inspiring mentor and a true professional.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project was made possible through the generous assistance of

Vancouver Community College, and through the willingness and motivation of

my students to "try something different. * I was provided with encouragement,

resources and support. My colleagues (in particular Emma Chang, Chris Clark,

Moira MacLeod, Maureen Sawkins, Riina Tamm, and Maggie Trebble)

provided invaluable cooperation and positive reinforcement. I am also grateful

to my community of friends and family who listened patiently throughout the

process. I would like to thank them. Finally, my thanks go to my committee

members, Drs. Gloria Sarnpson and Andrk Obadia, and to my external

examiner, Dr. Alice Wong, for their patience and insight.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

. . APPROVALPAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

DEDICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LIST OF FIGURES x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

CHAPTER

1 . LITERATURE REVIEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Introduction and Clarification of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Integrating Language and Content (ILC).. Theoretical

Perspectives and Pedagogic Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Theoretical Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Krashen's Monitor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Curnmins' Language Proficiency Model . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Language Socialisation Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Pedagogic Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Theme-based Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Sheltered Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adjunct Instruction 11

page

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Concerns with the Above Models 11

Syllabus Design in Language Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paradigm Shift 13

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Synthetic Approaches 14

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Formal Syllabus 15

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Functional Syllabus 16

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analytic Approaches 19

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Process Syllabus 20

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Procedural Syllabus Design 22

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Task-based Syllabus Design 24

2 . A MODEL FOR INTEGRATING LANGUAGE AND CONTENT

IN THE CLASSROOM: TASK-BASED SYLLABUS DESIGN . 25

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction and Clarification of Terms 25

. . . Long and Crookes' (1992) Six Phases of Syllabus Design 26

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Needs Analysis 27

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Syllabus Design 29

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology Design 31

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Materials Writing 32

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goals 32

vii

Page

Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Activities 34

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teacher Roles 36

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learner Roles 37

Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Program Evaluation 42

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion 42

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . DESIGNING THE SYLLABUS 44

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction 44

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background to the Course Design 44

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Designing the Syllabus 49

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of the Syllabus 51

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thematic Modules 52

Integrating Language and Content in the Learning Tasks 53

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design of the Learning Tasks 55

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology 60

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion 67

viii

4 . A REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TASK-BASED

SYLLABUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction and Clarification of Terms 69

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reflective Analysis 70

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Needs Analysis 71

Syllabus Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Methodology Design 76

Materials Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Input and Activities 80

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teacher Roles 81

Learner Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Testing 87

Program Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion 90

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References 92

AppendixA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

AppendixB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix C 108

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

3.1 Characteristics of the Syllabus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3.2 Organization of Thematic Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

3.3 Designing the Learning Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Building the Syllabus 60

3.5 Gatbonton and Gu's (1994) Communicative Methodology . . . . . . 61

BICS

CALP

EFL

ELA

ELS

ESL

ESP

EST

EWP

IL

ILC

LEP

L2

SLA

TBLT

TESL

VESL

VCC

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills

Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency

English as a Foreign Language

English Language Assessment (Assessment Centre at VCC)

English Language Skills (Department at VCC)

English as a Second Language

English for Specific Purposes

English for Science and Technology

English in the Workplace

Interlanguage

Integration of Language and Content

Limited English Proficient

Second Language

Second Language Acquisition

Task-based Language Teaching

Teaching English as a Second Language

Vocational English as a Second Language

Vancouver Community College

CHAPTER ONE

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction and Clarification of Terms

This review of literature overviews two areas of theory informing

syllabus design: the integration of English language instruction in a content

(ILC) area, and the evolution of syllabus design in the field of English as a

Second Language (ESL). In addressing these two areas of theory, it is

necessary to provide the historical contexts of their development.

A brief clarification of some of the important terms used in this thesis is

necessary. The terms student and learner are used interchangeably. The

learners referred to are that diverse group of adults who study ESL, and who,

therefore, need support in meeting the communicative demands of classroom

work. Because the term ESL is often inaccurate, as English may be the third or

fourth language a student is mastering, the term Limited English Proficiency

(LEP) is also used. Teacher is used to refer to the person whose main role it is

to teach. Teacher/planner is used to emphasize the course planning activities,

such as designing a syllabus or materials that a specific teacher does in addition

to classroom teaching.

Methodology, syllabus and curriculum are large and complex concepts,

and the terms are used by different writers in different ways. For the purposes

of this paper, I will use traditional definitions, but further discuss implications

and inadequacies of those definitions. Methodology, traditionally, deals with

pedagogy; the selection, sequencing and presentation of learning activities.

Syllabus refers to the selection and grading of content, and curriculum more

widely refers to all aspects of planning, implementing, evaluating and managing

an educational program.

Integrating Language and Content (KC)--

Theoretical Perspectives and Pedagogic Distinctions

Recent studies focus on the relationship between language and content

and view language as an instrument that is used to learn content material.

Wesche and Ready (1985) report the results of a study that suggests:

. . . gains in second language proficiency are best achieved in situations where the second language is used as a vehicle for communication about other subjects rather than itself being the object of study. (p. 90)

The integration of language and content (ILC) can be broadly defined as

language and content instruction for the educational benefit of LEP students.

Language development and content development are not regarded in isolation

from one another and there is a focus on the intersection of language, content

and thinking objectives.

English for specific purposes (ESP) is the area of English language

teaching which focuses on preparing learners "for chosen communicative

3

environments" (Mohan, 1986, p. 15). It differs from general ESL in that it is

based on a close analysis of the learner's communicative needs for a specific

occupation or activity, as well as a detailed analysis of the language of that

occupation or activity (Strevens, 1980). The language in an ESP course is not

the subject matter, but is being learned as part of the process of acquiring some

quite different body of knowledge or set of skills (Robinson, 1980).

According to Phillips (1981, p. 92), the element that gives ESP its

identity as a distinctive area of language teaching activity is the learner's

purpose. This purpose is not restricted to linguistic competence alone, but

involves the mastery of skills in which language forms an integral part. While

often addressing the communicative needs of professionals such as physicians or

engineers, ESP also addresses the needs of nonprofessional workers and the

subcategory Vocational English as a Second Language (VESL) is commonly

used in North America.

Theoretical Pers-pectives

According to Mohan and Dooley (1993, pp. 14-16), it is helpful to

consider ILC with respect to three theoretical perspectives: Krashen's Monitor

model, Cummin's Language Proficiency model, and the Language Socialisation

perspective.

Krashen's Monitor Model

One of the best known and most influential theories of second language

acquisition (SLA) in the 1970s and early 1980s was Krashen's monitor theory;

the input hypothesis is the central principle. The claim is that human beings

acquire language in one way only, by understanding messages. Krashen (1985)

termed this comprehensible input. Krashen's work has been widely debated and

criticized (for a summary, see: Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, pp. 245-249),

but has played an important role in encouraging ESL teachers to move from a

grammar-based approach to a more communicative approach. It may also have

been influential in encouraging content teachers to make efforts to be more

comprehensible by adjusting their speech and by providing contextual support.

Language learning (or acquisition, following the Krashen model) in

content-area ESL courses is stimulated by the rich context the subject matter

provides, by the inherent interest and relevance of the content, and by the fact

that the learners focus on messages and not on language form (Krashen, 1982;

Mohan, 1986). Language ceases to be taught in isolation (Mohan, 1986, p. 18).

Krashen's model is a theory of second language acquisition, not a theory

of knowledge acquisition. It speaks to the goals of the language class, not to

the goals of the content class. As far as the model is concerned, content classes

are merely possible sources of comprehensible input. It distinguishes between

5

language classes that provide more comprehensible input and those that provide

less. Krashen's stress on comprehension has been beneficial. On the other

hand, as Swain (1988) has pointed out, it has drawn attention away from the

importance of productive rather than receptive language performance (i.e.

speaking and writing rather than listening and reading).

In Krashen's model, content simply means message, and comprehensible

input is language with an understandable message or content. Content does not

have the specific meaning that it has for a content area teacher, and integration

is a non-issue. While this model appears to address the issue of ILC, it is of

debatable use as an instructional model. Krashen's input hypothesis model

stresses naturalistic acquisition rather than learning in a school setting and the

model is untestable.

c c 1

Cummins (1984) looks at the relationship between language proficiency

and academic achievement. He questions the assumption that "the 'language

proficiency' required for L2 (second language) face-to-face communication is no

different from that required for performance on an L2 cognitive/academic taskn

(Cummins, 1984, p. 13 1). He delineated two levels of communication: basic

interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive/acadernic language

proficiency (CALP), and then created a theoretical framework that added the

6

dimensions of context and cognition. Communicative tasks may be either more

context-embedded or more context-reduced; and communicative tasks may be

either more cognitively undemanding or more cognitively demanding.

Cummins emphasized the need to distinguish between BICS and CALP

so that ESL student evaluations on language proficiency tests would not

discolour their true academic potential. Bilingual proficiency means that the

development of proficiency in one language can contribute to the development

of the other; there is a Common Underlying Proficiency. This interdependence

of development is most characteristic of context-reduced, cognitively demanding

language proficiency, of which literacy skills are a central case, although oral

discourse can be context-reduced and cognitively demanding.

With respect to ILC, Cummins' model has played a very important role

by drawing attention to the differences between basic conversational language

and academic language proficiency, which takes years to acquire. It underlines

the importance of recognising and respecting the resources of both the learner's

languages, and the opportunities for positive transfer between them, especially

in literacy. Because it considers both first and second language development, it

implies that there is a need to go beyond a second language perspective and to

incorporate first language development research.

7

Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991, pp. 169-170) summarize the argument

that tests in schools do not truly measure language proficiency, the central

element of Cummins' model, so what Cummins is really referring to is test-

wiseness. In addition, literacy skills and references are specific to particular

cultures and communities so that the notion of a Common Underlying

Proficiency is problematic. Also problematic is the notion of context-

dependence. Mohan and Dooley (1993) state that the debate surrounding his

work raises important questions: Can we identify academic language

proficiency? Can we identify cognitive/linguistic elements which are cross-

cultural? Can we clarify the concepts of context and context dependence?

Language Socialisation Perspective

The language socialisation perspective is not a model devised by one

individual, but a set of related ideas shared to some degree among a diverse

group of scholars. While Krashen's and Cummins' models derive from a

tradition in social science which looks for causal explanation, this perspective

derives from the very different "interpretive" or "environmentalist" approach

which explores how people assign meaning to their social world (Mohan &

Dooley, 1993, p. 15).

Language socialisation means both socialisation through language and

socialisation to use language. The notion of language socialisation draws on

sociological, anthropological and psychological approaches to the study of

linguistic competence. Social and psychological factors (e.g. communicative

need, social interaction patterns, motivation for formal language study, or

preferred learning style, etc.) are analysed to determine their predicted influence

on SLA. Language socialisation aims at understanding how individuals become

competent members of social groups and the role of language in this process

(Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, pp. 25 1-266; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), ILC

with LEP students is a special case of language socialisation, since we need to

study how LEP students learn language and subject matter at the same time.

Pedagoeic Distinctions

Content-based ESL and ESP share several of the same guiding

principles, for example: the importance of context, the importance of attending

primarily to language meaning not form, and consideration for the needs of the

learner (Mohan, 1986). Likewise, content-based ESL and ESP use many of the

same instructional techniques based on communication and meaning. However,

in some ways the two types of instruction are quite different, the most important

differences stemming from their respective objectives.

Content-based ESL aims to teach content, in addition to teaching

particular language skills required for understanding the content, and to improve

overall English proficiency. Language learning is achieved primarily through

the careful presentation of understandable material. Content material is

carefully organized to support language learning, as recommended by Mohan

(1986), and the organisation considers both content and language. The classes

are taught by teachers who make linguistic and cultural adjustments in order to

help their students understand (Krashen, 1982, p. 167). For successful

language learning in content-area classes, it is necessary that students

comprehend the material and the teacher's messages (either through prior

knowledge or strong contextual clues), and that teachers can understand the

students' messages well enough to provide feedback (Mohan, 1986).

ESP, on the other hand, has the narrower objective of preparing learners

to function in very specific environments. For example, a six-week pre-

departure course for a group of Chinese graduate students who will work as

teaching assistants at Canadian universities, or a three month language

upgrading program for foreign-trained immigrant nurses. Thus, ESP courses

are structured principally to promote efficient and effective acquisition of

particular language and communicative skills.

Content-based ESL and ESP also share the assumption that language is

learned most effectively using content of interest and relevance to the learner.

Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989, pp. 14-25) outline three different program

models used at the college and university level: theme-based, sheltered, and

adjunct. Each model illustrates alternatives for integrating the language

curriculum with the academic or occupational interests of students and is

classified according to the relative focus on language or content.

Theme-based Instruction

In theme-based instruction, a language syllabus is developed around

selected topics usually drawn from a larger content area. The organisational

principles inherent in the theme or topic suggest an array of language items or

activities, ensuring their contextualisation and significance (Brinton et al., 1989,

p. 15). Theme-based language courses are the most widespread of the three

content-based models, possibly because they can be readily adapted to existing

institutional curricula and settings, and topics can be selected to match student

interests.

Sheltered Instruction

In sheltered instruction, a regular content syllabus is adapted to

accommodate the students' limited English proficiency. Course texts and

materials may or may not be adapted for LEP students, because the primary

goal is content learning. Content courses are taught in English to a segregated

group of learners by a content area specialist. The teacher is responsible for

both content and language.

Adiunct Instruction

In adjunct instruction, a special ESL course is linked with a content

course in which both second language learners and native English speakers may

be enrolled. The content teacher is responsible for content and the ESL teacher

teaches language. Although there is an attempt to bridge the gap between

content and language learning, the specific goal for the adjunct class is language

support. There is not an explicit system of integration, but rather an

assumption that academic coping strategies and cognitive skills will transfer

from one course to the other.

Concerns with the Above Models

Theme-based, sheltered and adjunct models of instruction share several

features with each other and with ESP. Firstly, content is the organizing

principle of the syllabus. Secondly, these instructional models rely on the use

of authentic materials. Authentic materials are those that were not originally

designed for the purpose of language instruction (ie. newspapers, employee

handbooks, videos, etc.). Thirdly, in all the instructional models some degree

of accommodation to the needs of the language learner occurs.

Each model clearly shows problematic issues with ILC, albeit for

different reasons. Using a theme-based instructional model, all four traditional

language skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) are integrated in the

12

content area. In the Sheltered model, content is the focus, but study skills may

be integrated. With the adjunct model, language and content are not truly

integrated. All of these instructional models, to one degree or another, also

raise the issue of collaboration between the language teacher and the content

teacher. Whether ESL teachers work with content teachers in support roles or

as true collaborating partners are issues of knowledge exchange, power,

authority and commitment.

Viewing innovation in the school, Canadian Sociologist Michael Fullan

(1991, pp. 135-136) cites research which questions the value of collaboration as

an end in itself; he states "we must be careful not to assume that increasing

interaction among teachers is automatically a good thing." Collaboration

between instructors with similar philosophical orientations about language and

the conceptual development of their students will facilitate the relationship.

Only teachers' collective vision of the potential of the collaborative classroom

for exciting cognitive and linguistic achievement will promote both effective

instruction for students and collaboration between colleagues in a climate of

mutual growth, respect, and support (Fullan, 1991, p. 135).

Addressing issues of ILC, Mohan (1993) calls for a closer inspection of

classroom processes; he suggests that two research bases for the systematic

analysis of content course activities are knowledge structures and tasks. He

13

posits that each of these is a unit of analysis common to both the content view

and the language view, which allows these two views to be coordinated.

Syllabus Design in Language Education

Syllabus designers--whether teachers, planners or course administrators--

do not design syllabuses in neutral or objective ways. Every syllabus is a

representation of knowledge and capabilities which has been shaped by the

designer's views concerning the nature of language, how the language may be

most appropriately taught or presented to learners, and how the language may

be productively worked upon during learning (Breen, 1987, p. 83).

Paradigm Shift

In his classic interpretation of scientific change, Thomas Kuhn (1970)

proposed the notion of a 'paradigm' as that frame of reference which a

community of specialists will share at a particular moment in history. For Kuhn

(1970, pp. 182-210), a paradigm is the theory, research and practice of a

community of specialists which reveals shared and consistent assumptions,

beliefs, values and ways of interpreting experience. Ideas in methodology,

evaluation, research and syllabus design are particular expressions of a

paradigm we share at a particular moment in history.

Any syllabus is therefore the meeting point of a perspective upon language itself, upon using language, and upon teaching and learning which is a contemporary and commonly accepted interpretation of the

harmonious links between theory, research, and classroom practice. (Breen, 1987, p. 83)

For Kuhn, a revolution in science is a period of time when one paradigm

is replaced by another. The intervening phase is, for the community of

specialists, a confusing period of 'paradigm shift.' Eventually, the new

paradigm will either be assimilated into the prevailing one, or the new paradigm

will gain momentum and develop so that it replaces its predecessor. Breen

(1987) and other language educators (Brown, 1975; Raimes, 1983; Richards &

Rogers, 1986; Stem, 1983) have applied Kuhn's notions of a paradigm shift to

evaluate current changes in different aspects of language education.

One result of a shifting paradigm is the way syllabus designers view

their work; Long and Crookes (1992) suggest we view syllabus design from two ) ,

different world views: a synthetic, Type A approach or an analytic Type B

approach (Long & Crookes, 1992; Wilkins, 1976; Yalden, 1983).

Synthetic A~~roaches

Formal and functional syllabuses are examples of synthetic, type A

approaches. These two syllabus types express the currently dominant paradigm

in language education by outlining plans of language knowledge and what is to

be achieved through teaching and learning as formal statements. Synthetic

syllabuses may use a variety of units, including word, structure, notion,

function, topic or situation as the unit of organisation. Long and Crookes i

15

(1992, p. 28) state that synthetic refers to the learner's role; to learn a language

in parts which are independent of one another, and also to integrate, or

synthesize, the parts to use them for communicative purposes.

Formal Svllabus

The Formal syllabus, also referred to as the structural or grammatical

syllabus, is the most common and well-tried type of syllabus in language

teaching. It focuses on the systematic and rule-based nature of language itself.

The Formal syllabus gives priority to how the text of language is realised and

organised in speech and writing. The roots of this syllabus type are in the

description 'and analysis of language by academic linguists. The learners' role

within the Formal syllabus plan is to learn how to be correct or accurate in his

or her production of the new language.

A Formal syllabus will most often separately identify pronunciation,

grammar, vocabulary, and morphology, and the structural features of discourse.

Given the view within the conventional paradigm of language as hierarchical,

the syllabus designer subdivides what is to be learned from larger units into

smaller units. In this way, the criteria for selection and subdivision of a Formal

syllabus approximate very closely to the analysis of language undertaken by the

linguist. A Formal syllabus will be sequenced primarily from simple to

complex but in ways which may also recognize frequency of usage to less

frequent usage, or form most useful structures, vocabulary, etc. to less useful.

According to Breen (1987, p. 86), there are four main arguments

supporting Formal syllabus design in language teaching. Firstly, that it is well

established and it is informed by a long tradition of linguistic analysis.

Secondly, that it presents learners with a subject-matter which is systematic and

rule-governed. These analytical categories or schemes may make it easier for

the learner to uncover how the language works. Thirdly, that because the

language has already been analysed in this way by descriptive linguists and

'language' is seen as subject-matter, it facilitates planning by syllabus designers.

Fourthly, Breen (1987, p. 87) argues that this type of syllabus relies on a

particular view of human learning; one in which a learner has the capacity to be

metalinguistic. That is, the learner has the capacity for categorising experience,

for seeking regularities in that experience, and for looking beneath the surface

of things to discover how they work in order to learn the language more easily.

Functional Svllabus

The Functional syllabus redefines language knowledge by focusing on

the purposes a learner may achieve through language in particular social

activities or events. The Functional syllabus is a synthetic plan of categories of

language use; most commonly an analysis of interpersonal or social functions.

17

A learner works within a Functional syllabus in order to learn how to achieve

certain purposes with the language.

Since the mid-1970s, the functional syllabus has probably been the

alternative to Formal syllabus types which has received the most attention,

particularly in the areas of implementation and materials development. In the

late 1960s and early 1970s, a new branch of linguistics emerged which

represented a strong interest in the study of language, not merely as a

phenomenon somehow separable from its use in everyday life, but as an entity

playing a central role in social events and social structure. Sociolinguistics and

Pragmatics are concerned with the analysis of language in use and with the

relationships between the language code or textual system (written or spoken)

and how people behave with language in social groups in certain social

situations.

The sociolinguist Del Hymes (1971, 1972) argued for the now influential

concept of communicative competence. His argument had important

significance for language education because communicative competence entails

an interdependent knowledge of the rules of the language, the knowledge of the

conventions of its use which are established and developed within social and

cultural groups, and a concern with language meaning.

18

In addition to the sociolinguistic roots of the communicative approach to

language teaching, there was motivation to improve existing methodology.

Breen (1987) reports that, "this period in language teaching has also been

characterised by a disillusionment with the seemingly 'mechanistic'

methodology associated with grammar-translation and audio-lingualism. "

The Functional syllabus shares with the Formal syllabus a skill-oriented

view of learner capabilities. Therefore, proficiency is identified with the

accurate and appropriate use of the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and

writing), and the process of developing a repertoire of functions is similarly

identified with a sequential development from receptive to productive skills.

Unlike the Formal syllabus, the Functional syllabus does not select and

subdivide language on the basis of an inherent system or rules of language. The

Functional syllabus categorises types of language purposes, perhaps based upon

student needs, into sets and sub-sets. It is assumed that the learner acquires

certain key functions (i.e. those most needed) as a kind of foundation of

language use and then gradually builds on this foundation (i.e. to those less

needed). Both Formal and Functional syllabus types rely on descriptive

linguistics and a faith that their respective organisations of language is

accessible to language learners at the time that it is introduced.

19

There seem to be two main arguments supporting Functional syllabus

design in language teaching. Firstly, the felt need within the profession to

improve upon old methodology coincided with developments in sociolinguistics

which reoriented language educators' views to the purposes for which language

can be used. Secondly, the recognition of the importance of meaning (Stern,

1983, p. 132) and the wish to enable learners to use language, from virtually

the outset of their learning, to achieve things in an interpersonal or social way.

This view implies that fluency may be valued more than linguistic accuracy or

knowledge which is a significant reorientation from the Formal syllabus.

alytic Approaches

The alternative to synthetic approaches are analytic approaches. These

represent recently developed views on the nature of language and its use and on

the learning and teaching of language. Synthetic syllabuses focus on what is to

be learned, and analytic syllabuses focus on how the language is to be learned

(Long & Crookes, 1992, p. 29). Analytic refers to the learners' role; to analyse

how language is used and how it is to be learned. Breen (1987) outlines two

types of syllabuses which exemplify analytic approaches: the process syllabus

and the task-based syllabus. Long and Crookes (1992) subdivide analytic

approaches into three syllabus types: the process syllabus, the procedural

syllabus, and the task-based syllabus. Analytic approaches express an emergent

paradigm in the language teaching community which challenges established

models for syllabus design and, as such, there are fewer implemented programs.

Process Svllabus

Twenty-five years ago, Postman and Weingartner (1969) challenged an

assumption which they saw as prevalent in the practise of contemporary

education.

The invention of a dichotomy between content and method is both naive and dangerous . . . the critical content of any learning experience is the method or process through which the learning occurs . . . It is not what you say to people that counts; it is what you have them do. (Postman & Weingartner, 1969, p. 30)

These writers were participating in a debate which has a long heritage in

educational thought and practice (Dewey, 1916; Friere, 1970; Holt, 1976;

Parker & Rubin, 1966; Peters, 1959; Stenhouse, 1975). The assumption that

the content of lessons is what is learned is challenged by the view that the

teaching-learning process is the significant substance of lessons. This view

implies that any syllabus is not merely subordinated to methodology, but is

actually replaced by what is learned Erom the experience of classroom work.

It is not surprising, perhaps, that the appropriateness or even the

possibility of designing a syllabus to represent communicative knowledge is

seriously in doubt (Widdowson, 1984a, 1987). A syllabus only has an indirect

influence upon actual language learning. The syllabus is mediated by teaching

and the classroom context within which teaching is only one element. It is

further mediated by learners' participation in the classroom work and by their

own interpretation of appropriate objectives and content for language learning.

Allwright (1984) is convinced that learners don't learn what teachers

teach. That learners learn less than what is taught and things other than the

teacher intended is the crucial intervening variable of learner participation. For

Allwright, it is not the content of a lesson that is the basis for learning but the

process of classroom interaction which generates opportunities for learning.

These opportunities may be acted upon in a way that different learners learn

different things from the same lesson.

A learner consciously or unconsciously superimposes his or her own

plan of content upon the teacher's syllabus. Learners also superimpose their

own learning strategies and preferred ways of working upon classroom

methodology. The variables which intervene between the planning of a syllabus

and the actual learning are so complex that the nature of the original plan might

be virtually unidentifiable. Candlin (1984) suggests that what a syllabus

consists of can only be discerned after a course is over, by observing not what

was planned, but what took place.

According to Breen (1987, p. 160)' process plans are derived from an

analysis of performance within events and situations, but also map out the

procedural knowledge or the underlying operations which enable a language

user to communicate within a range of these. Process plans are oriented to

classroom procedures and a philosophical process-oriented approach to learning.

Breen and Candlin's (1980) focus is the learner and learning processes and

preferences, not the language or language learning processes. They argue that

any syllabus, preset or not, is constantly subject to negotiation and

reinterpretation by teachers and learners in the classroom. Both Breen (1987)

and Candlin (1984) claim that learning should be and can only be the product of

negotiation.

One reaction to this dilemma within language teaching in recent years

has been to directly explore these relationships within the syllabus. In a sense,

the Process syllabus addresses three interdependent processes: communication,

learning, and the group process of a classroom community.

Procedural Svllabus Design

The procedural syllabus is associated with the work of Prabhu (1980,

1984, 1987) in India on the BangalorelMadras Communicational Teaching

Project. Prabhu (1987) recognises Krashen's claim that language form is

acquired subconsciously but denies the sufficiency of Krashen's comprehensible

input. Prabhu supports the idea that students need plenty of opportunity to

develop their comprehension abilities before any production is demanded of

23

them. He suggests that language acquisition occurs when the learner's attention

is focused on meaning through task-completion, not on language form.

Prabhu's definition of task for the purposes of the Bangalore project was

oriented towards cognition, process and teacher fronted pedagogy:

An activity which required learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process, was regarded as a 'task'. (Prabhu, 1987, p. 24)

In practice, two related tasks or two versions of the same task were

paired. The 'pre-task' was used by the teacher in a whole-class format, perhaps

with one or more students participating. The purpose was to present and

demonstrate the task, to assess its difficulty for the class, to modify it

accordingly and to elicit relevant language. The main task was then worked on

by the students and teacher provided feedback upon task completion.

Prabhu (1987) outlines that tasks should be intellectually challenging

enough to maintain student interest, for that will sustain learners' efforts at task

completion, focus them on meaning and engage them in the task's linguistic

demands. The examples of tasks Prabhu provides are familiar to

communicative language teaching. They include information gaps, calculating

distances and planning itineraries using maps and charts, assessing applicants

for a job, completing "whodunit" stories and answering comprehension

questions about dialogues. Although these tasks may be useful for language

learning, they are activities which students may never need to do in English

outside the classroom.

The activities in a procedural syllabus are preset pedagogic tasks, not related to a set of target tasks determined by an analysis of a particular group of learners' future needs. (Long & Crookes, 1992, p. 36)

Three main innovations in methodology emerged from procedural

syllabus design: the pedagogic focus on task completion instead of on language

used in the process; the lack of preselected language input; and the absence of

overt feedback on error.

Task-based Svllabus Desig

According to Breen (1987, p . 16 I), Task-based syllabus design explicitly

crosses the theoretical divide between content and methodology in three ways:

(i) its representation of communicative competence as the undertaking and

achievement of a range of tasks; (ii) its reliance on the contributions of learners

in terms of the prior communicative competence which learners bring to any

task; and (iii) its emphasis upon the learning process as appropriate content

during language learning. A detailed description of task-based syllabus design

is outlined in the following chapter.

CHAPTER TWO

A MODEL FOR INTEGRATING LANGUAGE AND CONTENT

IN THE CLASSROOM: TASK-BASED SYLLABUS DESIGN

Introduction and Clarification of Terms

There are many definitions of task as determined by different authors.

Long (1985) defines task using its everyday, nontechnical meaning:

a piece of work undertaken for oneself or for others, freely or for some reward. Thus, examples of tasks include painting a fence, dressing a child, filling out a form, buying a pair of shoes, making an airline reservation, borrowing a library book, taking a driving test, typing a letter, weighing a patient, sorting letters, taking a hotel reservation, writing a check, finding a street destination and helping someone across a road. In other words, by 'task' is meant the hundred and one things people do in everyday life, at work, at play, and in between. Tasks are the things people will tell you they do if you ask them and they are not applied linguists. @. 89)

Crookes (1986) narrows the definition of task in terms of what the

learner will do in the classroom (a learning task) rather than in the outside

world:

A piece of work or an activity, usually with a specified objective, undertaken as part of an educational course, or at work. @. 1)

The definition that is most relevant for this paper is from Nunan (1989)

who considers :

the communicative task as a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is primarily focused on meaning rather than on form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right. @. 10)

The terms task, learning task, and communicative task, are used

interchangeably in this paper. Three features of learning tasks stand out. The

first is that tasks are oriented toward goals. Students are expected to arrive at

an outcome. Thus, learners carry out a task with a sense of what they need to

accomplish through their talk or action. The second feature of task is work or

activity. This suggests that students take an active role in carrying out a task,

whether working alone or with others. The third feature is that learning tasks

engage the same abilities which underlie communication itself. Therefore,

interpreting and expressing how communication works and the process of

negotiating about such things (communicating in order to learn) are important

elements of learning tasks. The task-based syllabus represents the claim that

both the participation in communication and communicating for learning are

equally valuable and, indeed, necessary activities when a person is learning a

new language.

Long and Crookes' (1992) Six Phases of Syllabus Design

Long and Crookes (1992, pp. 43-45) claim that course design requires

theoretically coherent and empirically grounded choices in six distinct areas:

1. Needs Analysis

2. Syllabus Design

3. Methodology. Design

4. Materials Writing

5. Testing

6. Program Evaluation

They further add that the first and key decision is choice of a "unit of

analysis" because it reflects the designer's theory, and it influences decisions in

all other areas. For example, they advocate using task as a unit; they argue that

this implies using a task-based syllabus, a problem-solving approach, small

group methodology and precludes structural grading.

Needs Analysis

The needs established for a particular group of students are the outcome

of a needs analysis. These needs are influenced by the ideological

preconceptions of the analyst(s). In a teaching situation where the

teacherlplanner favours a task-based approach, the needs analysis focuses on

tasks that the student will need to do either in their work place or in a specialist

academic field. A different group of analysts working with the same group of

students, but with different views on teaching and learning, would be highly

likely to produce a different set of needs. Robinson (1991, p. 11) concurs that

the type of information sought through a needs analysis is usually closely

related to the approach to teaching and learning and to the eventual syllabus

design. For example, if the teacherlplanner favours a pedagogic approach

which focuses on linguistic forms and their accurate reproduction, then the

needs analysis is likely to involve some study of the students' grasp of linguistic

forms and linguistic analysis of target level texts. Students' needs will be

expressed in terms of language items which must then be taught.

Task-based syllabuses require a needs analysis to be conducted in terms

of target tasks that learners are preparing to undertake, such as: buying a movie

ticket, renting an apartment, reading a technical manual, plotting information

onto a graph, making a hotel reservation, and so forth. The students may be

required to perform the tasks, thus revealing which they are already capable of

performing and where their deficiencies lie. Valuable expertise in conducting

such needs analyses was accumulated by English for special purposes (ESP)

specialists in the 1970s and 1980s (Berwick, 1988; Jupp & Hodlin, 1975;

Mackay & Mountford, 1978; Munby, 1978; Widdowson, 1981; Willcins, 1976;

Yalden, 1987). Much of this work can still be drawn upon, even though most

early ESP program designers were working within a notional-functional

framework and in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context.

29

There are different meanings or types of needs. First, needs can refer to

students' study or job requirements; that is, what they have to be able to do at

the end of their language course. This is a product-oriented, or goal-oriented

definition of needs (Widdowson, 1981, p. 2). Needs in this sense are perhaps

more appropriately described as "objectives." Second, we can consider "what

the learner needs to do to actually acquire the language. This is a process-

oriented definition of needs and relates to transitional behaviour, the means of

learning" (Widdowson, 1981, p. 2). Third, we can consider what the students

themselves would like to gain from the language course. This view of needs

implies that students may have personal aims in addition to (or even in

opposition to) the requirements of their studies or jobs. Personal needs may be

devalued by both teachers and learners as wants or desires. Fourth, needs can

be what the user-institution or society at large regards as necessary or desirable

to be learnt from a program of language instruction. Finally, Robinson (1991,

p. 8) suggests that we may interpret needs as lacks; that is, what the students do

not know or cannot do in English.

$vllabus Design

Once target tasks have been identified via the needs analysis, the next

step is to classify and organize them. For example, in a course for trainee flight

attendants, the serving of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and refreshments

30

might be classified as serving food and beverages. Learning tasks which engage

the students in various aspects of communication are then developed and

sequenced to form the task-based syllabus. Simplicity and complexity will not

result from the traditional application of linguistic criteria, but reside in some

aspects of the tasks themselves. A few of the potential sequencing criteria that

have been proposed are: the number of steps involved, the number of solutions

to a problem, the amount and kind of language required, the number of learners

involved, and other aspects of intellectual challenge a learning task poses. (See

further discussions in: Long & Crookes, 1992; Pica, Kanagy & Falodun, in

press .)

The theme-based organisation of content as the focus of learning tasks is

a newer orientation to syllabus design than the earlier functionalist orientation

of ESP. Within English for specific purposes, there is now strong concern with

the development of tasks which are appropriate to the learning and target needs

of specific groups - such as students in diverse academic disciplines and learners

of particular technical and vocational areas of knowledge and skill. Task-based

work in ESP emerges from the practicalities of planning valid classroom work

for students who are learning a language, not for its own sake, but as the means

for the achievement of communication within a particular work or study related

context.

M e t h o d o l o g y ~ ~

The traditional distinction between syllabus design and methodology

suggests that syllabus design deals with the selection and grading of content (the

what of teaching), and methodology deals with the selection and sequencing of

learning activities (the how of teaching). According to the traditional distinction

then, task design would seem to belong to the realm of methodology. However,

with the development of communicative language teaching the distinction

between syllabus design and methodology has blurred. The teacherlplanner

needs to specify both the content (or ends of learning) and the tasks (or means

to those ends) and also to integrate them. Concurrent consideration is given to

content, methodology and evaluation. This suggests a much broader

perspective on curriculum than the traditional distinction. Task based theorists

de-emphasize the need to articulate methodological concerns and suggest that

they are inherent in the tasks.

The negotiation of learning process urged by many (Breen, 1987; Breen

& Candlin, 1980; Chamot & O'Malley, 1987; Hutchinson & Waters, 1987) can

be built into task-based language teaching as a methodological consideration.

Breen (1987) draws attention to the frequent disparity between what the teacher

intends as the outcome of a task and what the learners actually derive from it.

According to Nunan (1989, p. 20) learning outcomes will be influenced by

32

learners' perceptions about what they should contribute, their views about the

nature and demands of the task, and their definitions of the situation in which

the task takes place. In addition, we cannot know for certain how different

learners are likely to carry out a task. Nunan (1989, p. 20) suggests that one

way of dealing with the discrepancy between psychological/operational realities

for the learner and the teacher is to involve learners in designing or selecting

tasks. He suggests that it should be possible to allow learners choices in

deciding what to do and how to do it provided there is a major change in our

view of the roles we assign to learners and teachers.

Materials Writing

Because they are primarily researchers and theorists, Long and Crookes

(1992) and Breen (1987) have little to say regarding the writing of materials;

Nunan (1989) and Pica, Kanagy and Falodun (in press) offer suggestions for

task-based materials design for teachers. Nunan (1989, p. 11) offers a

framework for analysing communicative tasks which has three main

components: goals, input and activities; which in turn implies certain teacher

roles, learner roles and settings.

Goals

Learning goals provide the point of contact between the task and the

broader syllabus. According to Nunan (1989, p. 49), goals are the vague

33

general intentions behind any given learning task and may relate to a range of

general outcomes (communicative, affective or cognitive) or may directly

describe teacher or learner behaviour. He also notes that goals are not always

stated but may be inferred from an examination of a task. In some cases, a

complex task involving a range of activities might simultaneously have several

goals. Nunan also distinguishes between goals aimed at teaching general

English and those developing skill in ESP. He gives the example that modules

for developing listening skills can be divided into those focusing on general

listening (i.e. understanding spoken media) and those for specialised listening

(i. e. understanding university lectures).

InDut

Input for Nunan (1989, pp. 53-59) refers to the data that form the task.

He advocates the use of authentic materials to form the basis for communicative

tasks, but raises questions about 'authenticity' and what mixture of authentic

and published course materials is valid. For language courses with goals

relating to the development of academic skills, or preparing learners for further

study, it has been suggested (Widdowson, 1978) that texts can be taken from

content areas and activities adapted from relevant academic disciplines.

Learners will be introduced to the discourse and arguments of those particular

disciplines. For VESL and English in the workplace (EWP) courses Belfiore

34

and Burnaby (1984, pp. 84-85) suggest gathering authentic materials from the

worksite. For example, photographs of each step in the production process at a

factory could be used to have learners write instructions regarding production

and clarify any area of misunderstanding.

Activities

Activities specify what learners will actually do with the input which

forms the learning tasks. Nunan (1989, p. 60) points out that the issue of

authenticity is also relevant to the activities the learners are required to do. It is

limiting the possibilities for language learning to use authentic materials in non-

authentic ways.

In generating a typology of task types, Pica et al. (in press) outlined four

conditions which must be present in order to promote the greatest opportunities

for language learners in terms of comprehension of input, feedback on

production, and interlanguage (IL) modification. The following conditions must

be present to ensure those processes:

1. Each learner holds some information which must be exchanged

and manipulated;

2. Learners are required to request and supply this information to

each other;

3. Learners have the same or convergent goals;

4. Only one acceptable outcome is possible from the students'

attempt to meet this goal.

These four conditions are desirable because students must work to

understand and be understood by each other and there are opportunities for

negotiation and activation of language learning strategies.

Studies of interlanguage (IL) (Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991, pp . 8 1-

83) show that learners pass through fixed developmental sequences which

include quite lengthy stages of nontargetlike use of language forms as well as

use of nontargetlike forms. There is no more support for the idea that learners

acquire one notion or function at a time, than for the idea they master one word

or structure at a time. Progress is often not even unidirectional; there is often

evidence of "backsliding" or "deterioration" in learner performance.

In their analysis of task type features, Pica et al. (in press) consider the

jigsaw task type, where each student has a piece of the information needed to

complete the task, as the most likely to generate opportunities for

comprehension, feedback and interlanguage (IL) modification processes. They

suggest that information-gap tasks, where only one student holds crucial, task-

relevant information and the other must request it, can only satisfy conditions

for successful SLA if students' alternate roles as requesters and suppliers of

information. Other tasks, such as problem solving, decision-making and

opinion-exchange, are deemed less likely to generate SLA because learners

start out with shared access to all or some of the same information necessary for

task completion, and students can reach one of many possible outcomes.

Teacher Role

The role of the ESP teacher is less clear than the role a general ESL

instructor assumes. There is no single, ideal role description. Primarily, the

ESP teacher is a teacher; the qualities of good teaching generally, and of

language teaching specifically, are required for ESP. Some of the basic

teaching activities are: shaping the input, encouraging the learner's intention to

learn, managing the learning strategies and promoting language practice and

use. In addition, the ESP teacher has a variety of roles not normally required of

the general ESL teacher. Often, the ESP teacher is involved in designing,

setting up and administering of the course. An ESP (or E W ) teacherlplanner

may conduct the initial needs analysis, which may require considerable

diplomacy in order to gain information, access to the students' work

environment or authentic documents. It is therefore necessary to develop

effective methods of communicating the nature and purpose of the program to

non-specialists. Having designed the course, the ESP teacher is then likely to

be involved in preparing materials, and quite often devising tests as well as

administering them.

37

arner Role

All learning tasks contain roles for teachers and learners, and conflict is

likely to occur if there is any misunderstanding between teachers and learners

about their respective roles (Nunan, 1991, p. 289). According to Porter (1986),

learners talk more with other learners than with native-speaking partners, and

learners do not learn each other's errors. Gass and Varonis (1985) found that

there were advantages, when conducting group work, to pairing learners of

different proficiency levels as well as from different language backgrounds.

The sequencing of the task-based syllabus relates to two things; the

nature of a task and the emerging learning problems of students which are

uncovered during participation in the communication task. There is a sequence

of refinement in learner competence because tasks require more and more

learner competence, and there is a continual sequence of diagnosis and

remediation. The emphasis on needs analysis in task-based syllabus design

ensures learner-centredness. Initial tasks are diagnostic in two senses. First,

they are aimed at uncovering the language competence the learner has. Second,

they are diagnostic of what the learner does not yet know or cannot yet do,

which becomes the starting point of the ongoing sequence of learning tasks.

This development from the learner's initial competence, is linear in progress

38

towards increased competence and expansive to participate in a widening range

of task types.

Breen (1 987) elaborates:

The task-based syllabus is two syllabuses side by side; a syllabus of communication tasks and a syllabus of learning-for- communication tasks which serve to facilitate a learner's participation in the former. @. 161)

The task-based syllabus also focuses upon the learner's own experience and

awareness of language learning.

Although it may be dangerous to make assumptions about learners'

levels of awareness about language learning, and diagnoses can sometimes be

misleading, the learner's level of language awareness is important to determine

for instructional purposes. Learners need to be informed about the language

itself, about language learning techniques and processes, and about themselves

as language learners. The more advanced learners are in terms of language

level and learning awareness, the less learner training they are likely to need; in

this case it is important to negotiate and be selective.

Settin=

The classroom setting refers to the learner configuration (either teacher-

fronted, small group, pair or individual), as well as the environment (whether

the task takes place in the classroom or outside the classroom). An early task

study (Long, Adarns & Castanos, 1976) found that small-group tasks prompt

39

students to use a greater range of language functions than teacher-fronted tasks.

In relation to environment, Montgomery and Eisenstein (1985) found that

supplementing classroom tasks with community-based experiences resulted in

significantly increased language gains. In high schools in the United States,

Shirley Brice Heath (1992) found that language learning is enhanced when

students are actively involved in selecting the content, learning tasks and

evaluation and when that learning is activated beyond the classroom.

Testing

Robinson (1991, p. 73) reports that testing in ESP is a relatively

neglected area. The challenge derives from the fact that the student has a

definite target related to adequate performance in a study or work situation.

Both at the start and at the end of an ESP course we need to know how near a

student is to achieving adequate performance. What type of test can measure

this?

Language tests can be either norm-reference or criterion-referenced. A

norm-referenced test score provides information about an individual's relative

rank with reference to other individuals who have taken the test. For criterion-

referenced tests, on the other hand, test scores are reported .and interpreted with

reference to specific content domains or criteria of performance. Tests for

general purpose English are typically norm-referenced, whereas Long and

Crookes (1992) state that:

Task-based syllabuses would ideally imply assessment of student learning by way of task-based criterion-referenced tests, whose focus is whether or not students can perform some task to criterion, as established by experts in the field, not their ability to complete discrete- point grammar items . . . developments in criterion-referenced language testing in the past 15 years hold great promise for language teaching in general and for task-based language teaching in particular. (p. 45)

The teacherlplanner must determine the exact nature of the criteria for judging

adequate performance. This may require the assistance of experts in the

specific work or study area that students are or will be involved in. Criterion-

referenced testing may have an implicit beneficial effect on teaching; teaching

for the test (which some view as inevitable) becomes teaching towards the

proper goals of the course.

Theoretically, the test would consist of performance in a real-life

situation; although more common is simulated real-life performance. For

example, writing an essay using material from several authentic texts in a

source booklet. The English Language Assessment @LA) test used at the King

Edward Campus of Vancouver Community College (VCC) consists of sub-tests

or tasks which replicate what students might be expected to have to do in their

subsequent courses of study. All four language skills are tested.

41

A key question for ESP teacher/planners is how close the subject matter

of a test should be to the students' specialist discipline. Students are likely to

demand that it be very close, in which case the test designer may wonder

whether content knowledge may then compensate for linguistic deficiency. If

background knowledge has an effect on text comprehension and test

performance, students who have studied English within a specific content area

may feel at a comparative disadvantage when taking a supposedly neutral test.

How can we assess background knowledge?

In general, Robinson (1991, p. 74) reports support for performance-

based teaching when the primary aim is to reinforce teaching and learning, but

less support when performance testing is used for selection purposes,

specifically when recommending students for future courses of study. The

predictive value of performance testing is based on the presupposition that a

correlation exists between linguistic proficiency and academic success.

Tests are also part of the broader process of evaluation, which in itself

contributes to the teaching and learning process. Test results can help teachers,

syllabus designers and writers of course materials to change and develop both

themselves and their materials.

Program Evaluation

According to Robinson (1991, p. 65), evaluation of ESP courses has

been neglected. ESP courses are often written up in journals as successful,

despite there being no account of any objective measurement of this success.

Robinson (1991, pp. 65-69) describes a basic distinction between formative and

s u m t i v e evaluation. Formative evaluation is carried out during the life of a

course and the results can be used by the teacher to modify what is being done.

Summative evaluation is carried out when the course is f ~ s h e d for the purposes

of ascertaining the effectiveness of the course in preparing students for their

subsequent work or study experience, as a resource for others thinking of

running similar courses or for course cost-effectiveness.

There is some overlap between evaluation and needs analysis.

Information on needs is certainly needed for the evaluation. Needs analysis is

an ongoing process; students' needs change as a course progresses. Both

formative and summative evaluation can be undertaken to provide data as input

to possible change. Thus, evaluation can be used as quality control; however,

evaluation does not necessarily lead to change.

Conclusion

The major assumption of task-based syllabus design is that learning tasks

call upon and engage the same abilities which underlie communication itself.

43

Therefore, interpreting and expressing how communication works in the target

language and the process of negotiating about such things (communicating in

order to learn) are important elements. The task-based syllabus represents the

claim that both the participation in communication and communicating for

learning are equally valuable and, indeed, necessary activities when a person is

learning a new language.

CHAPTER THREE

DESIGNING THE SYLLABUS

Introduction

Chapter Three describes the adaptation of a task-based model for

designing and teaching a content-based ESL course. In Chapter Four, both the

implementation process and the task-based model itself are analysed and

critiqued. This is a false separation; it is difficult to describe the designing and

teaching of a course without simultaneously analysing and critiquing it, as these

processes are interrelated. Designing and teaching a course requires a constant

evaluating and revising of what is happening in the classroom on a daily basis,

rather than a formal critique of what has happened after completion.

Background to the Course Desip

Chapter Two described task-based curriculum design from the

perspective of the curriculum theorists. Such people usually work at a more

abstract level than those actually responsible for developing courses and

teaching materials, or for the day-today task of teaching. Regular classroom

teachers are generally presented with curriculum guidelines or sets of syllabus

specifications, and are required to develop their courses and programs from

these.

Although most teachers at VCC work in relative isolation from each

other and professional growth is usually an individual matter, there have been

increased opportunities for support from colleagues on this project. Two new

VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) courses in addition to

Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations were being developed at

approximately the same time: Advanced ESL for Business and Office and

Advanced ESL for Health Care. The offices of the two other teachers and my

own were located within close proximity of each other and we shared physical

resources (student texts, teacher resource books, videos, etc.) as well as insights

and ideas. The informal, ad hoc style of our communication generated ideas.

This support from colleagues was crucial and our orientations towards teaching

and course design were similar.

As the teacherlplanner developing the syllabus for Advanced

ESL/Tourism and Customer Relations, I was required to use one main resource

as a linguistic basis for the course--Vancouver Community College's English as

a Second Language (ESL) Instructor's Guide: Advanced Level ( 1 990). The

guide, referred to by VCC instructors as the ELS Advanced Level Curriculum

Guide, is divided into five sections: Listening skills, Communicative skills,

Reading skills, Writing skills and Grammar. Each section, with the exception

of the Grammar section, is composed of four parts: Notes to the Instructor,

Goals and Obiectives, Teachin? Su~eestions and Resources.

The Goals and Objectives part lists the goals, enabling skills and

objectives partially based on student needs assessments completed between

September 1987 and March 1988, prior to publication. The following points

are representative of typical student objectives listed in the Goals and Obiective~

part:

Listening Skills

Students should be able to:

recognize tone of voice (stress and intonation) and body language as

clues for attitudes, feelings and register;

make references as to time, place, personal characteristics, motives,

previous or successive events, causeleffect;

develop an awareness of good listening strategies such as predicting

and guessing, confirming and d i s c o n f i g , etc.

Communicative Skills

Students should be able to:

ask for and give factual information;

express and ask about feelings, attitudes, opinions, ideas, etc.

describe people, objects, places, sequences of events;

socialize (including conversation management strategies).

Reading Skills

Students should be able to read for the following purposes:

to be current with world events;

to understand functional materials (forms, labels, notices) and

materials appropriate to their work (instructions, letters, reports,

manuals, etc.);

to recognize and use words and patterns that signal relationships of

time and order, listing, causeleffect, and comparison/contrast;

to distinguish fact, fiction, opinion, bias, propaganda, etc.

Writing Skills

Students should be able to:

generate and organize ideas in descriptive and narrative modes;

use Advanced level grammatical structures appropriately;

revise content for meaning (clarity, organization, elaboration of ideas,

etc.) in order to communicate effectively with the reader;

use paragraphs and parts of the composition (introduction, discussion,

conclusion) appropriately.

The Grammar section of the curriculum is presented in a different

format. There are notes to the instructor on teaching grammar including how to

48

present a grammar point and how to correct errors. The final part of the section

is a list of grammar points to be covered. I created a grammar checklist based

on this list (see Appendix A) as a resource for designing the syllabus.

The course, Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations,

combines ESL training and introductory content in the Hospitality area for adult

ESL immigrant students at Vancouver Community College. The content

instruction does not focus upon vocational training for specific jobs, but on

various linguistic aspects of the tourism industry and, particularly on the

language needed for customer service positions within that industry. The

course is designed as a language course and is not intended to be a job training

course. Students' English language study requirements are determined by

documented progress reports from instructors or the English Language

Assessment (ELA) test which is administered by the Assessment Centre at King

Edward Campus of Vancouver Community College and is provincially

recognized. Students have to have a minimum English placement

recommendation of Lower Advanced. Students with an Upper Advanced level

placement recommendation are also accepted, but assessed at the end of the

course using different criteria. Student self-identification and selection, or

previous teacher recommendation determines appropriateness in terms of

content area interest.

Informal expressions of interest for Vocational English as a Second

Language (VESL), and a sufficient number of registered students for the course

determined that it was viable. There was no specific needs analysis done. The

first session of the course was offered September to December 1994. Fourteen

students were enrolled. An informal survey of student needs conducted in the

first week of class showed that students had enrolled for three different reasons.

Two students in the class planned to take, or were taking vocational training in

the Tourism and Hospitality area, but needed to upgrade their English for pre-

requisite purposes and to learn basic vocabulary and concepts. For example,

one student was concurrently enrolled in the Culinary Arts department at the

City Centre campus of VCC, and another student planned to take the one-year

Food and Beverage Management certificate program. Three students were

simultaneously employed in the hospitality industry, but wanted to upgrade their

language skills for promotion at their workplace. The majority of students (nine

of the fourteen) viewed the content area as an opportunity to combine short-term

career exploration andlor general interest with continued English language

study.

Designing the Syllabus

In order to prepare for the course, I was relieved from half-time teaching

duties to do curriculum development. There was considerable time to

familiarize myself with the content area by reading native-speaker texts,

previewing extensive video holdings, speaking with content area specialists at

VCC's City Centre campus, taking the British Columbia provincial

government's SuperHost and SuperHost Leader programs and reviewing

published ESL materials focused on this content area.

Rather than providing a complete description of the syllabus, only those

features relating to syllabus organization, design of the learning tasks, and

methodology will be described. Figure 3.1 below summarizes these

characteristics:

Organization:

Modular

Task-based

Content and language integrated

Linguistically graded

Learning Tasks:

Real-world texts

Theme-based

Linguistically multi-skilled

Methodology:

task-responsive Gatbonton and Gu's (1994) Communicative Methodology

Figure 3.1. Characteristics of the Syllabus

m a t i o n of the Svllabus

A modular, task-based, content and language integrated, and, to satisfy

institutional requirements, graded approach was used as an organizational basis

for the syllabus. Content was organized into one, two or three week modules

based on themes taken from the Hospitality and Tourism field. The objective of

organizing the content into themes was to provide students with a broad

overview of the occupational field. Because of its diversity, the tourism

industry is difficult to define. The eight sector grid of the tourism industry was

envisioned in Tourism: The Quest for Professionalism in 1986 by the Pacific

Rim Institute of Tourism and has since been adopted as the official tourism

sector designation for British Columbia and Canada. The eight tourism sectors

were used as a basis for the thematic modules with two additional themes:

Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality, and Customer Service (see Figure

3.2). A theme to consider adding in subsequent terms, as a response to student

requests, will be Canadian Job Search Skills. Most students, even those not

seeking employment, wanted to use the computer lab to create their own

r h m 6 .

11 Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations

Introduction to Tourism and Hospitality .............................. one week

Customer Service .................................................... two weeks

Food and Beverage ........................................................ one week

Attractions .................................................................. one week

Adventure Tourism ....................................................... one week

Accommodation ........................................................... two weeks

Events and Conferences ................................................. one week

Transportation ............................................................. one week

Travel Trade ............................................................... one week

Tourism Services .......................................................... one week

[Summary and Testing ................................. three weeks]

Fieure 3.2. Organization of Thematic Modules

Thematic Module

The thematic modules are designed to be used independently from one

another and in any order, with the exception of the Introduction to Tourism and

Hospitality which should be the first module in the course and the Summary and

Testing which should be the last module. Each theme is explored using a

variety of learning tasks and experiences. The course was organized with the

Customer Service module immediately following the Introductory module

because the concepts of effective customer service underlie all other areas;

however, it may also be useful to teach this module later in the course, or to

divide it into two sections.

A module is defined as a series of two and a half hour lessons on the

same theme; there are four lessons in a week. One lesson may have one or

more tasks; usually, at least two or three tasks make up a lesson. The tasks

were presented with the specific rules and procedures that the students needed to

know in order to carry out each task. Students also needed to rely on their

general background knowledge, including crosscultural knowledge, in order to

understand the meaning, implications, and consequences of each task.

Cognitive skills (e.g., how to classify information), learning strategies (e.g.,

sequencing the information within an acceptable format), and linguistic skills

were at times required for the students to perform each task satisfactorily.

Integrating Langue e and Content in the Learning Tasks

The learning tasks became the bridges between language and content.

As a teacherlplanner, the first goal was to identify the rules and procedures that

the students would need to know in order to carry out each task, and to

determine whether their general background knowledge was sufficient for each

task. Another goal was to represent these tasks so that cognitive skills such as

classifying or sequencing information could be presented in a visual way that

the students could do independently. Tasks were then related to linguistic

knowledge such as aspects of grammar and vocabulary, and ways of using

collaborative learning and learning strategies were considered.

Integrating language and content @LC) also means that the processes

used by students to acquire knowledge resembles the usual processes native

speakers might use when expanding their knowledge of the field. Thus, for

students to learn about the Canadian workplace, the associated concerns of

employers and their ways of thinking, the activities require them to gather,

classify, synthesize and convey information about these issues just as they

would if they were employees or, if the tasks were academically oriented,

students in the Hospitality field.

A task in the Events and Conferences module illustrates this integration

of language and content (see Appendix B). In this learning task, the students

role play two positions. The vocabulary specific to this module (i-e.

participants, seminar, facilities, auditorium, flip charts, etc.) would have been

covered in previous tasks in the module. Student A adopts the role of the sales

representative for a medium-sized hotel and Student B adopts the role of

conference organizer. Student A has a diagram of the hotel facilities and an

information brochure. Student B has a list of requirements. Both students must

scan the texts to locate the appropriate information and use the new vocabulary

in their responses; thereby integrating the content and the language by which

they learn this content.

The dual objectives of both language and content were acknowledged by

Vancouver Community College through the awarding of a "Statement of

Completion" for mastery of the content area material and the distribution of

report cards to validate language progress. Granting the Statement of

Completion is determined by attendance, class participation and in-class

multiple-choice tests, and the report cards listed student results on in-class

marks and term-end final exams in the four skill areas of language proficiency

and grammar. The students were familiar with the English language assessment

system and understood the requirements as each progressive course is

articulated to the next (i.e. Pre-Intermediate leads to Lower Intermediate leads

to Upper Intermediate etc.). Students also know that they can eventually earn

high school completion requirements if they choose to do so; therefore, taking

Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations does not impede that goal.

Desip of the Learning Tasks

The learning tasks are designed to use real world language, be theme-

based and linguistically multi-skilled. Learning tasks are classroom activities

designed to promote the learning of linguistic knowledge and skills. Authentic

materials as advocated by Brinton, Snow and Wesche (1989, pp. 14-25) are

56

materials not originally designed for the purpose of language instruction. Real

world is defined as genuinely communicative language as used in the

occupational field of Tourism and Hospitality (workers in hotels or restaurants)

or, language required in a non-ESL stream of a Hospitality and Tourism

training course. Real world language is natural and not artificially constructed

in order to teach a specific linguistic structure or vocabulary. Linguistically

multi-skilled means that students review and are introduced to a variety of

grammatical structures, language forms, functions and new vocabulary in

different tasks at varying time intervals throughout the length of the course, and

must develop different skills accordingly.

As a teacherlplanner, my immediate focus was on the day-today

teaching and learning activities; the tasks for each lesson were the basic building

blocks of the course. For a goal such as: "Students completing Advanced

should be able to read for the following purpose[s]: to understand functional

materials (forms, labels, notices) and materials appropriate to their work

(instructions, letters, reports, manuals, etc . ) . " I would examine a particular

piece of text (a reading from a native speaker text, or from an ESL workbook,

or some authentic company literature from a hotel chain, etc.) and decide on a

This goal is listed on page 3-3 of the ELS Advanced Level Cum'culum Guide.

57

task or sequence of tasks which required the learner to extract and transform the

key information contained in the text in some way (for example, by completing

a diagram or filling in a chart). A text (Sampson, 1980) "is a sequence of

sentences which forms a whole or a coherent piece of a whole. Texts may be

spoken or written" @. viii).

I would also determine which linguistic aspects of the content learners

would need to engage in to complete the task successfully. This might include

finding the meaning of a range of vocabulary items, comprehending logical

relationships, or understanding an aspect of adjective clauses. I might write

separate exercises for these or incorporate linguistic aspects into the task itself,

and the items would be checked off against the linguistic skills as listed in the

ELS Advanced Level Curriculum Guide. Grammar points would be checked off

against the Grammar Checklist (see Appendix A).

As in a regular stream Advanced Level ESL class, there was no

prescribed order for linguistic items to be taught. My students were familiar

with the linguistic skills listed in the guide as they informally ensured I was

covering the curriculum with their friends or former classmates in regular

stream Advanced Level ESL classes. After teaching a particular task I would

make notes to myself on areas that students had difficulty with (for example,

vocabulary or grammatical structures they were unfamiliar with) and make

58

further refmements to the task for the next time I used it with another group of

students. The evolutionary nature of the syllabus design was flexible enough

for me to revisit points that students had trouble with by readjusting goals for

subsequent tasks. In this way, the syllabus evolved in the course of preparing

the program.

This process of designing the learning tasks is visually represented in

Figure 3.3.

In this process, content-area texts and tasks are selected and developed

in tandem so that content can develop task and vice versa. The tasks are also

designed to interest and motivate students who may have a wide range of

language competencies, interests and experiences in the Tourism and Hospitality

industry. "Unless the learning tasks are embedded in materials that might lead

to cognitive or affective growth, there will be in fact no external or internal

motivation for learning English" (Sampson, 1980, p. ix).

Figure 3.3 shows a feedback loop where the results of the task

evaluation lead to a refinement of the task which may be fed back into the

goals. The resulting development of other tasks and their further impact on the

goals thereby builds the course syllabus. The building of the course syllabus is

represented in Figure 3.4.

Select Content-area Text

Determine Task

Develop Graphic Way of Representing the Task

Consider students' background knowledge

Relate task to linguistic knowledge Consider ways to encourage use of

learning strategies

Teaching Methodology

Evaluation

Figure 3.3. Designing the Learning Tasks

--t

Refinement of Task -

ELS Advanced Level Cuwiculum Guide

I to be drawn on in

developing I

Related Lesson P Thematic Module

Figure 3.4. Building the Syllabus

Methodolop

Task-based theorists see curriculum planning as an integrated set of

processes. Methodological concerns become de-emphasized. As a

teacherlplanner, I needed more specific methodological guidance. Gatbonton

and Gu (1994, pp. 9-29) discuss a curriculum development project in which

they opted for a task-based syllabus design and then searched for a suitable

methodology. The methodology they originated is comprised of two phases: a

Communication Phase and a Consolidation Phase. The Communication Phase is

defined as one where genuine interactions are encouraged; the Consolidation

Phase is where focused practice on a careful analysis of the formal properties of

language is held (Gatbonton & Gu, 1994, pp. 26-27). The Consolidation Phase

is dependent on the Communication Phases for its aims and procedure. This

methodology is graphically presented in Figure 3.5.

Communication Phase Teacher's Role

Preparation - Demonstrate

I Consolidation Phase I - I - Demonstrate 1

Goals

Selection Fluency

Automatic Fluency

4

Figure 3.5. Gatbonton and Gu's (1 994) Communicative Methodology

In the preparation part of the Communication Phase, the teacher explains

the procedure and elicits or explains the purpose of each task. The teacher tries

to generate curiosity, draw out students' background knowledge and bring up

any foreseen difficulties. During the Communication Phase itself students

participate in inherently communicative and repetitive tasks that are oriented

towards eliciting a critical mass of utterances. This methodology presupposes

62

that fluency precedes mastery. In order to develop fluency, the learner is

encouraged to produce lots of language - not all of it necessarily correct.

According to Gatbonton and Gu (1994, p. 20), this Communication Phase can

provide opportunities for on-the-spot teaching and learning. The student slowly

refines hypotheses about language by speaking and being understood, or by

being provided with corrective feedback from the listener. The freedom to

make errors is a characteristic of the language learning during the

Communication Phase.

In the Consolidation Phase, students focus on language that they used

during the Communication Phase, particularly, that which gave them

difficulties. Part of the teacher's role is to observe and record student

interaction during the Communication Phase; the teacher can then have students

participate in form-focused activities based on these observations or do prepared

exercises based on the texts used in the Communication Phase. Depending on

students' needs, activities could be fluency and accuracy-oriented, form-

focusing activities such as analysing the formal properties of specific utterances

(e.g. structure, pronunciation, intonation, stress, etc.) or activities examining

linguistic content (e.g. nuances of meaning, use of conversational gambits or

idioms, socio-cultural uses, the organization of knowledge, etc .) , or all three.

To illustrate how this methodology provides guidance to the

teacherlplanner, refer to the task listed in Appendix C. For the Preparation

Phase, I drew out background knowledge by writing the word role play on the

board and having the students explain their ideas around the concept. I then

confirmed or clarified their explanations and explained the procedure and

purpose of the activity.

After dividing the class into groups of three, I presented each group with

a text describing the situation (see Appendix C). After giving the students

sufficient time to read, I elicited vocabulary words that they didn't understand

and wrote them on the blackboard. The following words were listed: guest

privileges, bonuses, efficient, reliable, Human Resources, job security and

flexible. We discussed the meanings and I ensured the students understood the

situation and the purpose of the discussion. In order to create interest in the

task, I asked the students if they knew someone who had been in a similar

situation. I also asked if they found the issue relevant to the changing

workplace in Canada. The students then chose roles, and put away the text to

ensure that they didn't refer to it.

During the Communication Phase, the students adopted their respective

roles. They discussed the situation and worked towards finding a solution. A

substantial amount of language was produced because the learners were engaged

64

in the task and expecting to arrive at an outcome. During the Communication

Phase, I circulated among the groups and facilitated the discussion by answering

questions about vocabulary or modelling appropriate phrases. I offered "on-

the-spot" teaching if asked, but tried not to interrupt the speakers. I noted

typical errors which I later used as part of the focused practise in the

Consolidation Phase.

After fifteen minutes, I asked the students to stop their discussions and

we quickly circled the room to compare solutions. To refocus the students onto

language learning and as a transition from the Communication Phase to the

Consolidation Phase, I asked the students to take five minutes to reflect on their

discussion and to describe their method of problem solving in a group.

Although there was never one simple approach that would work for all kinds of

problems, the following list describes their basic process:

1. Analyze the problem

2. Suggest a variety of solutions

3. Evaluate the solutions

4. Select the best solution

This list provided the opportunity to review some of the language

functions in a formalized manner. I put some of the functions on the

blackboard, and the students brainstormed for additional language suggestions.

I offered phrases and corrected errors that I had observed during the

Communication Phase. Some of our phrases were:

1 . Analysing the problem

In my opinion,

As far as I'm concerned,

As I see it,

Personally, I think

It seems to me

I think

I believe

Suggesting a variety of solutions

Let's

Perhaps we could

We might

Why don't we

Why not

What about

How about

I suggest

3. Evaluating the solutions

I think - is best.

- isn't practical.

- would work best.

- wouldn't work.

Which solution do you - agree with?

- like best?

Unfortunately,

I'm sorry, but

Well the problem is

I'm not sure - that will be possible.

- that will work.

- that will help.

- that will be necessary.

I'm afraid that might not - work.

- help.

- be possible.

4 . Selecting the Best Solution

What do you mean?

Do you mean

I don't quite follow.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Sorry, but I don't - understand what you mean.

- see what you mean

- get what you mean

Yes, that's a good idea.

Yes, why don't we try that.

Okay, let's try that.

According to Gatbonton and Gu (1994),

the success of this methodology depends on how well the different phases are integrated. Integration of these phases is achieved not only by making the Preparation Phase focus upon getting the students receptive and ready to do the activities of the Communication Phase. It is also achieved by making the Consolidation Phase dependent upon what difficulties may have been experienced during the Communication Phase. @. 19)

Conclusion

Until recently, curriculum implementation often meant taking a

previously prepared syllabus and putting it into practice in an instructional

setting. Content was frequently specified for particular groups of learners and

norms were provided to facilitate assessment and evaluation. The process was

usually unidirectional--from curriculum developers to teachers to students--with

varying degrees of support along the way.

This process has often been unsatisfying for teachers. Ownership is a

necessary part of change. I sought out the opportunity to design the new course

Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations and I approached my

Department Head with the idea; I was excited by the challenge of applying some

of the ideas I had gained from doing graduate course work at Simon Fraser

University in the Faculty of Education. Conditions that supported this project

included: a personal vision and focus, departmental freedom to experiment and

take risks, collaboration with colleagues, the guidance of a model, time, a work

environment that was conducive to reflective thinking, and appreciation for

learning as an ongoing, constructive and self-directed process. The process of

trying to adapt a task-based model which has emerged from the view that

curriculum development and implementation are concurrent and interrelated was

not unidirectional. A curriculum cannot be prescriptive because each teacher

must design appropriate learning tasks to address students' needs, interests and

abilities in each different teaching context.

CHAPTER FOUR

A REFLECTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TASK-BASED SYLLABUS

Introduction and Clarification of Terms

In Chapter Four, the process of adapting a task-based model for syllabus

design and the model itself is analysed. The reflections are analysed within the

same framework the task-based model was presented in, as outlined in Chapter

Two, for organizational and comparative purposes.

Task-based syllabus design is an expression of an emergent paradigm in

language teaching. This new vision of syllabus design asks that

teacher/planners view their work in a completely new way. Eventually, this

emergent paradigm will either be assimilated into the prevailing one, or the new

paradigm will gain momentum and develop so that it replaces its predecessor.

This intervening phase will continue to be a confusing period for our

profession. My individual experience in trying to adopt a task-based approach

to syllabus design was parallel. I did not wholly succeed in adopting the new

syllabus design as envisioned by theorists, rather I adapted and assimilated some

aspects into my existing views.

Reflective Analysis

As teachers, it is important to value and validate our own experience in

the classroom, and not always to try to follow what the "experts* say.

Reflection can be a tool for learning about qualitative issues as one moves

through a project, but is not necessarily the way to evaluate the project's

success. Support, tension, change, power, authority, commitment, and other

qualitative issues are extremely complex and difficult to determine directly,

partly because of the difference between reality and perception. Teacher

reflection, as case-study research, is vulnerable to charges of not being

generalizeable across a variety of situations, with a variety of subjects.

However, I believe this is measuring its value by the wrong criterion.

A case study is valid to the reader to whom it gives an accurate and useful representation of the bounded system. Researchers look for ways to directly and indirectly c o n f i i their observations, and readers of case studies participate in the effort to understand the validity of the observations. (Wolcott, 1988, p. 263)

Both a limitation and strength of teacher reflection is the reliance on only one

source of information. There may be the tendency to oversimplify one's

interpretation, to make things manageable and to reduce the complexity of the

issues. Course design is complex; to keep probing for more, rather than fewer

factors that may be involved is the challenge. The meaning of the experience

71

from my point of view and frame of reference may have useful implications for

other teachers and projects in the future.

Needs Analpsis

In a teaching situation where the teacherlplanner favours a task-based

approach, the needs analysis, theoretically, should focus on tasks that the

student will need to do either in their work place or in a specialized academic

field. A needs analysis conducted prior to teaching the course or right at the

start of the course was not feasible for three main reasons: institutional

requirements, student perspectives, and teacher perspectives. The semi-

negotiated, ongoing needs analysis advocated by task-based theorists, was an

effective, viable alternative.

Because of the institutional requirements (i.e. following the ELS

Advanced Level Curriculum Guide), I knew that I would have less opportunity

to be responsive to students' communicative needs than theory suggested. The

students' language skills had been previously assessed either by their former

teacher or through the Assessment Centre at VCC and were therefore not true

indicators of their communicative needs but assignments into a predetermined

series of levels.

In practice, conducting a needs analysis at the start of the course may not

provide direction for the teacher. Students are not always able to articulate

their needs. This may be due to lack of English proficiency or due to cross-

cultural differences. In traditional education cultures, the teacher is viewed as

the authority and therefore the "knower" of needs. Indicating needs and

participating in the design of the syllabus is not the usual student role. The

offering of extensive choices by the teacher may be viewed as demonstrating

insufficient planning on the teacher's part.' A lack of student articulateness may

also be due to personality type--for some people it is difficult to ask for what

they need, especially in a public setting, and it is sometimes difficult to self-

identify needs. In addition, student needs change over the 4-month length of the

course. What is identified as a need at the beginning of the course may not be a

need three months later.

Thirdly, task-based theorists do not state that teaching is totally student

needs driven. I tried to meet different student needs (i.e. to be more or less

occupationally focused) at different times and I hope that the course satisfied at

least some needs, some of the time for all students. In addition, while I try to

create a democratic atmosphere in my classroom where students feel

comfortable expressing their needs, views or complaints, I also know that my

plan dominates. In order to maintain my own goals of covering the

institutionally required curriculum and introducing to students an overview of

For further discussion on this topic, see: Pemer (1995).

the content material, I needed to follow a plan. Because I am task and goal

oriented myself, I teach and plan while thinking ahead to the next course. If I

am truly responsive to student needs, there is the possibility that the next course

will be totally different than this course. While I expect and want change for

each course, I also need continuity. If I have to continually develop new,

untried materials I feel I can never gain competence.

Svllabus Desig

Some of my practical needs as a teacher could not be satisfied by a

wholesale adoption of the process orientation of thought to syllabus design. I

agree philosophically that the syllabus only has an indirect influence upon actual

language learning. There are countless variables which intervene between the

planning of a syllabus and the actual learning, and they must be constantly

subject to negotiation and reinterpretation by teachers and learners in the

classroom. However, I needed a tangible, organizational plan to give shape to

my teaching. Long and Crookes (1992, p. 46) argue for a semi-negotiated

syllabus that is somewhat preplanned and guided. They argue in terms of

efficiency or relevance to students' needs. They suggest that others could object

to the lesser degree of learner autonomy that such a structure produces, but I

found security in their suggestion.

As a teacher I see the impact of a student's affective state on her

learning; students with healthy self-esteem and feelings of competence as

learners are more open to learning. Shouldn't we then, as teachers, create

situations for ourselves in which we nurture affective states that are therefore

conducive to good teaching? The adaptation from teaching general ESL to

teaching content-based ESL felt very natural to me. The organizational

principles inherent in each theme I chose provided me with an array of language

items and possible tasks to develop. Using a theme-based structure was easily

adapted to existing institutional curricula and the topics were selected to match

student interest so they were also supportive of the adaptation. Students told me

they found it a more "interesting" way of studying English.

Although only the theme-based units, not the tasks were preplanned, the

course outline provided me with continuity and direction. The syllabus is now a

record which provides guidance to myself the next time I teach the course, to

colleagues who may teach it in the future, to learners, and to Vancouver

Community College. Students appreciated having a printed course outline too;

they often referred to it and ensured that I followed it. Students felt safe to

negotiate alternative plans to the course outline because they saw the

organizational goal for the term. Candlin (1984) suggests that what a syllabus

consists of can really only be discerned after a course is over, by observing not

75

what was planned, but what took place. The plan itself may therefore be used

as a tool to reflect on what happened.

Much of the responsibility for curriculum decisions rested with me, the

teacherlplanner. To become an effective decision-maker, I had to increase my

awareness and knowledge of possible approaches to learning and teaching, as

well as strategies and skills for assessing students. As I experimented with

alternatives to suit different situations, exciting new ideas emerged concurrently

with feelings of anxiety. Working with creative tension was a challenge,

because I had to have a realistic sense of the present (my students' needs and

my usual, known way of teaching) and also to believe in my capacity to

transform and ultimately improve my teaching. I needed enthusiasm for

learning, courage to experiment, an attitude of inquiry, willingness to

collaborate, and thoughtful reflection. This self-imposed situation also

produced anxiety and real concerns over the possibility of failure.

I felt tension between my new beliefs and daily experience that

curriculum development and implementation are concurrent and interrelated

processes, and the co-existing expectations (institutional and my own) that

curriculum implementation means taking a prepared program and putting it into

practice in an instructional setting. Concurrent curriculum planning and

implementation is itself a process of innovation. As an individual

teacherlplanner, I felt I needed to have expertise and knowledge about the

direction and nature of the change I was pursuing, with an understanding of and

an ability to deal with the factors and strategies inherent in that process of

change.

Methodolog Desia

In the task-based literature, the traditional distinction between syllabus

design and methodology has blurred. It seems straightforward to suggest that

methodological concerns are driven by tasks; however, in practice this requires

extensive knowledge of different pedagogical options on the part of the teacher.

Even with an extensive knowledge of pedagogical options, I am not sure the

tasks inherently "suggest" one particular methodological choice over another.

Certainly each task can be presented in a different way. For example,

the task "write a letter of complaint" can be presented in a very traditional

teacher-fronted way. The teacher could present students with a model letter.

Alternative phrases to those contained in the model could be drilled in

substitution-style drills and then the students could write their own letters

following the model based on a teacher-provided scenario. The teacher might

then mark the errors according to an error checklist and the students could re-

write the letter the next day. Or, the same task can be presented in a more

process-oriented, student-centred way. In small groups, students could

77

brainstorm a real-life scenario in which they have a complaint. Phrases could

be jotted down on flip chart paper and compared by all members of the class.

A letter format could be decided on by group consensus. Students could then

write their first draft of the letter individually, but get together in pairs for peer

revision. There could be a schedule of student-led conferences with the teacher

to re-work the second draft. The f m l version could then be sent to the

newspaper or the company in order to file the complaint.

In the above example, two approaches (traditional/communicative) are

contrasted. This juxtaposition is not meant to foster stereotypical images or

overgeneralization, nor to show that one approach is better than the other. The

example shows that by de-emphasizing the need to define the form that task-

based instruction should take, advocates of it leave practising teachers with little

guidance and the sense that anything goes. Surely, some set of pedagogical

options will be more effective in some clearly defined contexts than others.

Sheen (1994, p. 133) advocates further research into the relative beneficial

effects of specific forms of instruction in specific contexts, taking into account

the classroom behaviours of all concerned.

Some theorists (Breen, 1987; Charnot & O'Malley, 1987; Hutchison &

Waters, 1987) claim that emphasis upon the learning process as appropriate

content suggests methodological concerns for teachers using a task-based

78

approach. One suggestion is to involve learners in designing or selecting tasks.

Perhaps after teaching Advanced ESL for Tourism and Customer Relations a

number of times, I may have the confidence and wealth of tasks or experiences

necessary for this suggestion. I can envision a time when learners could play a

much larger role in selecting tasks and truly learning language to learn.

Materials Writing

The most important aspect of the development of successful task-based

materials is the time available in order to do so. As a teacher/planner, I was

responsible for selecting tasks, adapting and modifying commercially available

tasks, and creating new tasks. Content area texts and tasks were developed in

tandem. The four basic questions I asked myself regarding task selection were:

does the task provide communicative opportunities for language

learning?

does the task satisfy some of the students' needs or goals?

Is the task authentic (or, at least, does it elicit authentic language)?

Does the task cover any of the linguistic objectives listed in the ELS

Advanced k e l Cumkulum Guide?

Secondly, while the selection of tasks is facilitated by the ongoing,

informal, student needs analysis, determining task difficulty and sequencing

pedagogic tasks poses greater concern. Long and Crookes (1992, p. 46)

suggest the need for parameters or operational terms in assessing task

classification and difficulty. Further concerns Long and Crookes (1992, p. 46)

refer to are: the lack of boundaries surrounding pedagogic tasks, that tasks

overlap, that some are vaguely defmed, that many tasks have subtasks, and the

nature of the relationship between tasks (if any), and so on.

Goals

Nunan (1989, p. 49) writes that the goal of each task is not always stated

but may be inferred from an examination of the task. My criticism of this is

similar to my criticism of the task-based rejection of the concept of method; the

teacher is provided with little guidance. Nunan (1989, p. 49) writes that

learning goals may relate to a range of general outcomes (communicative,

affective or cognitive) or may describe teacher or learner behaviour. These

goals are very vague and cover a vast range of outcomes that may occur in

class. There is the major assumption that the communicative interaction

entailed in task work will trigger language acquisition. While this may occur, it

is difficult to assess what is learned in each specific task because the goals are

so general. What particular skill(s) is the task trying to develop?

Long and Crookes (1992) concede that SLA research findings may be

too recent, inadequate in scale or not rigorous in methodology. This concession

seriously erodes their initial rationale for advocating the adoption of a task-

based approach. Moreover, some educators (Egan, 1983; Sampson, 1984a;

1984b) argue that it is impossible for curriculum development andlor

instructional techniques to be purely scientific. They suggest that because

education is not a technological domain but a social domain, only the findings

of educational theory can feed directly into teaching practice. The role then of

educational theory is to evaluate the appropriateness of findings in scientific

theories for practical educational purposes.

As a teacher I want more specificity; I need to have the guidance of

some stated goals. The adoption of Gatbonton and Gu's (1994) Communicative

Methodology satisfied this need for specificity that was not addressed by the

task-based theorists. The methodology provided balance. If goals and

methodology are too specifically prescribed, I feel that my professional

judgement, personal style and experience is neither acknowledged or valued;

but if the goals are only to be inferred, I feel there is too little guidance. In

addition, because I want to make learning goals and objectives explicit to

students in ways that they are understood in order to guide them in their own

language learning, I need specific goals.

Input and Activities

Many task-based theorists (Nunan, 1989; Prabhu, 1987) advocate the use

of authentic materials. The definition of authentic is generally any material

81

which has not been specifically produced for the purposes of language teaching.

Proponents of using authentic materials argue that if we want learners to

comprehend aural and written texts in the real world, then learners need to use

real-world language in class. The issue of task authenticity raises time concerns

for the teacherlplanner. There are a growing number of published ESP

materials in a variety of occupational areas; researchers (Porter & Roberts,

1981) have found that materials written for TESL have a variety of features

which make them different from authentic language. However, for practical

and time considerations, I created both my own learning tasks and adapted

published material.

To determine what mixture of authentic and published materials is valid,

the teacherlplanner must turn away from theorists and consult the findings of

practice oriented researchers and/or experiential reports of other

teacherlplanners. The typology or task type (Pica, et al., in press) provided

guidance in materials writing and task selection.

Teacher Role

Who is the vocational ESL teacher? At Vancouver Community College,

almost always he or she is a general ESL teacher who has unexpectedly found

himlherself teaching students with special vocational language needs. The

teacher's training is usually in teaching English as a second language (TESL),

82

not in the specialized vocational area. Students' views regarding the role of the

teacher and the nature of English language teaching in a vocational area may

conflict. If the students expect that the VESL teacher should be an authority in

the content area, they may find it hard to accept a teacher who is forced at times

to admit ignorance of the content area. If the students believe that English

language teaching should consist of practice in grammar and general

vocabulary, they may well be disconcerted when the English teacher appears to

be teaching content material. It is not uncommon in adult ESL classes for the

teacher to see herself as a guide and catalyst for classroom communication,

while the learners see her as someone who should be providing explicit

instruction and modelling the target language.

These differences in perception have serious implications for daily

classroom activities. What can we do as VESL teachers? In such situations, it

is necessary to have consultation and negotiation between teachers and learners.

In the preparation phase of each task (see Figure 3.5), the teacher helps the

students understand the purpose and procedure. There is also the opportunity to

discuss our respective roles and expectations. The teachers' roles in each phase

of Gatbonton and Gu's (1994) Communicative Methodology are stated, which

provides pedagogic guidance, but are still sufficiently broad (i.e. to explain, to

facilitate, etc.) to accommodate interpretation.

83

VESL teachers can also develop professional competence by specialising

in a particular discipline or vocational area. But to what level should the

content-area ESL teacher realistically strive to master the content-area? Can the

English for science and technology (EST) teacher be expected to absorb the

values and symbols of science without the thoroughgoing training which

scientists have? For EST teachers to understand a scientific text properly, they

need to know the concepts and presuppositions involved. Ignorance of these

means that the text as a whole may not be understood. Attention might then be

devoted to lower level features of grammar and vocabulary.

In attempting to improve one's specialist knowledge in one small area, it

is important not to lose sight of or underestimate the importance of the VESL

teacher's role, which is that of language teacher and not specialist.

Undoubtedly, a knowledge of the content-area will be of help. However, the

main value of knowledge of the content-area is to give the teacher confidence.

The content-area ESL teacher's most effective role is as a teacher of things not

learned as part of their content-area courses. The VESL teacher may take

content material which is known to the students but present it from a different

viewpoint in addition to exploiting it for language learning opportunities.

In my class, the majority of student errors were of general English. The

tourism-related errors were usually recognisable and my content-area knowledge

was sufficient to correct the errors or they could be resolved using reference

materials. The VESL teacher must know enough of the content in order to

assess the content correctness of students' statements.

Learner Roles

Some of the assumptions about learner roles made by theorists

advocating a task-based approach do not hold up in the classroom. While most

of my students had previously studied at Vancouver Community College, eleven

out of fourteen had lived in Canada less than three years. Four students were

from Taiwan, one was from China, one from Hong Kong, one from Vietnam,

one from El Salvador and three were from the former Yugoslavia. None of the

students had studied English in a North-American-style communicative

classroom before arriving in Canada. Many of their attitudes towards teaching

and learning had been formed in classrooms where the teacher used a more

traditional approach.

At risk of oversimplification, the traditional approach can be

characterized as a focus on the teacher's presentation of material, the textbook

and grammar; whereas the communicative approach can be characterized as a

i focus on the learner, practice and skill development. The students' somewhat

traditional educational values and attitudes contrasted with my own. In the

traditional approach, the students are required to be able to memorize English

85

and answer discrete point grammatical questions, as creative use is believed to

come later. Relationships are also clearly defmed; the attitude towards the

teacher is one of respect and reliance on the teacher's knowledge and authority.

For some students, behaviour attached to the concept of respect and saving face

prevents students from questioning their teachers. Questions imply that teachers

have failed in their duty to impart knowledge clearly.

In order to fully participate in a task-based approach, students will have

to redefine their roles in order to participate differently in their learning

experience. Students will also need to adopt different learning strategies that

are more conducive to task-based activities. The teacher needs to ease students

into this new way of thinking by explaining the teaching and learning

assumptions underlying teaching activities in order to contribute to the learners'

understanding of their learning processes.

Settings

I felt strongly that one of the surest ways to get real world language

input for my students was to visit different tourism and hospitality related sites.

I arranged for visits long in advance and tried to coordinate the timing, so that

they occurred within the thematic unit that they were a part of. For example,

we visited a large five-star hotel during the accommodation module. The person

providing the tour would invariably use much of the vocabulary we had covered

in class. Before leaving for each site, we would develop a task that involved

86

getting information from the person who gave us the tour. For example, before

visiting the hotel the class was divided into groups of four. Each group had to

brainstorm and write down a list of criteria they felt that a hotel needed to have

in order to be awarded a five-star rating (i.e. the hotel needed to have a

swimming pool, the hotel needed to have babysitting available, etc.). In order

to provide structure for their brainstorming, I provided a list of all hotel

departments and each group had to provide at least three criteria for each

department. While we were on the visit, the tour guide answered many of the

questions the students had. As a follow-up task in class, we compared our

criteria sheets with the rating system used by the British Columbia Automobile

Association hotel rating system.

In addition to providing authentic language input, I believe that changing

the setting and leaving the classroom has three additional benefits. Firstly,

students are exposed to a Canadian workplace that they might not ordinarily

have the opportunity to see. There is much socio-cultural information to be

discerned from this opportunity, such as seeing the working conditions behind

the scenes, hearing some of the thinking about work ethics and company

loyalty, etc. Secondly, removing students from the classroom setting allows

different aspects of their personalities to emerge. Each new setting touches

each student in a different way. Off-site visits may spark an experience, a

87

strength or a skill that is not brought out in the classroom setting. Thirdly,

visits establish a sense of class bonding and students usually take on different

roles than they ordinarily play in the classroom. I try to disengage myself from

the planning process; although I book the tour and provide maps for directions,

I let the students plan and rely on each other for transportation, costs and food

arrangements if needed.

Testing

It is perhaps in the area of testing that I had the most difficulty in

adapting a task-based approach to teaching. Because I had no flexibility in

terms of how I tested the students at the end of the term, it was ultimately

impossible to fully use a task-based approach. The final examinations for the

course were institutionally required for all students at the Advanced Level, and

the students were tested for proficiency in the four skills (reading, writing,

listening, speaking) and grammar recognition separately. I believe that in

providing opportunities to strengthen the intellect and develop the cognitive

skills of ESL students, I cannot compartmentalise language. To speak, listen,

read and write is to engage the mind in thinking; language and thought are

interdependent. The final tests that were used were incompatible with my

personal teaching beliefs, were not achievement tests based on content and, for

the most part, did not have the students do tasks. Language educators view

88

testing from different world views. The required VCC proficiency tests did not

emerge from the same approach as the task-based model which I adapted for use

in syllabus design.

The students were familiar with and anxious about the fairly rigorous

end of term testing system. The washback efSect, teaching during the term in

preparation for the final tests, posed a concern for both the students and myself.

How much of the curriculum should be sensitive to preparing the students to

pass the exit tests? Although, in general, the washback efSe of the final

examination should not be the guiding principle in the development of a

curriculum, the importance of passing the tests in the students' lives had to be

taken into account.

At Vancouver Community College, specific evaluation instruments have

not yet been designed for the three VESL courses. The VCC proficiency tests

did not accurately test real-life communication skills for Tourism and

Hospitality oriented occupational and academic student goals. Content-area

language testing in general is fraught with controversy, and "many a curricular

innovation have been undone by failure to make corresponding changes in

evaluation" (Savignon, 1991, p. 266). Another issue of concern that needs to

be addressed is how to test the students' knowledge of the content. Is it

possible to test content-area knowledge without simultaneously testing

language? How can we be sure where it is that students lack proficiency?

After we completed two modules (two or three weeks of lessons), I

would give the students a short in-class multiple choice content-area quiz;

however, I had serious questions about the value of these quizzes. What

information did the quiz results provide me, or the individual students, with? I

believe the quizzes provided an indication of the students' relative performance

to each other, some impetus for students to review notes, and also indicated

their ability to memorize and recall specific information. But did a high score

indicate ability to use the language in a communicative way? Did it indicate a

deep command of the content material?

Program Evaluation

Surnrnative evaluation occurs some time after the end of the course, for

example one month or a year or more after. This type of evaluation attempts to

ascertain the effectiveness of a program or course in preparing students for their

subsequent work or study experience. Eleven out of fourteen students passed

on to the study at the next English level. Therefore, by this basic evaluation the

course was effective. But was it? Robinson (1991, pp. 66-68) suggests that

there is some overlap between needs analysis and evaluation. If the needs

analysis has been an ongoing process, acknowledging that students' needs

90

change as a course progresses, then an evaluator would wish to know whether

these changes had been responded to or not. In my case, the writing of this

thesis, and particularly this reflective analysis, is partially an evaluation of the

program. Additional purposes in evaluating the course are: to guide future

syllabus changes, to document events for others' thinking of running similar

courses, to clarify objectives, and to identify any unintended outcomes of the

syllabus innovation.

Conclusion

Theorists Long and Crookes (1992, pp. 45-47) advocate for task-based

language teaching based on claims that it is compatible with second language

acquisition (SLA) research, that it has a principled approach to content

selection, and that materials selection and methodology decisions are influenced

by classroom-based research. Long and Crookes (1992, p. 46) recognize that

no complete task-based language teaching, as they envision it, has been

implemented or subjected to rigorous, controlled evaluation. While my work

may not refute any of the arguments which support the advocacy of task-based

theory, I offer a record of the practical experience of trying to adapt a task-

based model to a particular teaching situation. Although I was not able to adopt

a task-based model for syllabus design quite as task-based theorists envision, I

feel the model was invaluable to me as a teacherlplanner. It served as a

standard for imitation and comparison.

Personal and professional rewards gained from being involved in this

innovative project were many. Firstly, I put myself into the challenging

position of learning that I presumably put my students into. Learning, for both

teachers and students, is influenced by background knowledge, prior

experience, educational beliefs, personality, learning styles, attitudes, self-

esteem and confidence. Teachers are also affected by environmental factors

such as expectations of others, relationships with colleagues, access to models

and mentors and time to reflect. Secondly, my professional knowledge was,

ultimately, validated in the adaptation of curriculum resources and the creation

and selection of materials. Thirdly, I enjoyed and sought change in order to

revitalize my work life. New trends stimulated my excitement and enthusiasm.

Hopefully, I explored possibilities and created a syllabus that others may build

on and improve. By looking at the specific experiences of one person, we can

often learn general or universal lessons from it.

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Appendix A

Appendix A

Grammar Checklist

Adverb Clauses: degreelresult (solsuch . . . that)

Adverb Clauses: (if) general time

Adverb Clauses: (if) past unreal time

Adverb Clauses: (if) mixed time

Adverb Clauses: manner (seemsllooks like)

Adverb Clauses: place (where, wherever)

Adverb Clauses: reduction

Adverb Clauses : contrast (whereas, while)

Adverb Clauses: condition (unless, even if)

Adverb Clauses: manner (as, as if, as though)

Conjunctive Adverbs: later on

Conjunctive Adverbs: then

Conjunctive Adverbs: therefore

Conjunctive Adverbs: however

Conjunctive Adverbs: also

Conjunctive Adverbs: otherwise, on the contrary

Adjective Clauses: necessary vs. unnecessary

Adjective Clauses: prepositions with whichlwhom

Adjective Clauses: modifying the whole sentence

Adjective Clauses: reduction

Causatives: havelget something done

Lethelp + noun phrase + infinitive

Adj ./noun/verb + preposition + noun or gerund i.e. responsible for, possibility of, insist on

Noun Clauses: as subject in a sentence

Noun Clauses: as object in a sentence

Noun Clauses: as object of a preposition

Noun Clauses: who, whom

Noun Clauses: whoever, whatever, wherever, etc.

Noun Clauses: "it" as subject, referring to noun clause

Noun Clauses: after verbs of urgency

0 Infinitives: negation

Infiitives: as subject, or subject complement

0 Infimitives: as adjective, or adjective complement

0 Infimitives: as adverb

Infiitives : to replace noudadj . Iadv. clauses

Infinitives: with too, enough

Gerunds: negation

0 Gerunds: as subject in a sentence

Gerunds: as object in a sentence

0 Gerunds: possessive

0 Gerunds: after prepositions

Gerunds vs. Infimitives as objects: same meaning

0 Gerunds vs. Infinitives as objects: different meaning

Appendix B

Student A

You are the sales representative for a medium-sized hotel that has on-site conference facilities. Student B wants to find out about your conference facilities, and to negotiate suitable rates with you.

Facilities

- = folding partitions

1. Multi-purpose conference hall. This contains all the conference facilities and can be extended to include the side seminar rooms, using soundproof folding partitions.

2 . Main auditorium. This is the centre of the multi-purpose hall, and seats 124. This can be used as a cinema.

Seminar rooms. On either side of the auditorium there is space for 110 seats. This space can be added to the main auditorium, or divided by folding partitions into six smaller seminar rooms, the smallest of which seats 26.

Speakers platform. The speakers platform is located at the front end of the main auditorium. On the speakers platform there is a table for five speakers. Behind it there is a film screen.

Film projection room. This room contains the audio-visual equipment and is located at the rear end of the main auditorium.

Coffee bar. This has a seating capacity of 40.

Conference Eaui~rnea

Every seat in the auditorium has a writing table and a microphone for use during debates.

The rooms at the sides have their own conference equipment which can be used either together with that of the main auditorium or separately.

Each seminar room has a video recorder, camera and monitor TV set for recording presentations and viewing them again.

All normal conference equipment is available, including overhead projectors for transparencies, a photocopier, flip charts, word processing, etc.

Portable equipment: - Two 8mm film projectors - Three projection screens - Eight overhead projectors - Four tape recorders - Two VCRs - Nine flip charts

Fixed equipment: - One 35mm film projector - One 16mm film projector

Rates

Negotiable, depending on the number of participants staying in the hotel. Minimum rate is $1000 per day. Audio-visual equipment, copying service, secretarial services, and food and beverage to be charged separately.

Student B

You are organizing a conference on behalf of the Canadian Students' Association. Talk to the sales representative of the hotel (Student A). Find out what is offered. Try to negotiate a suitable rate. The details of the conference are as follows:

Duration of conference: 4 days Number of participants: 120

Types of meetings include:

Lectures to all participants Division into eight groups for seminars and workshops Video presentations in the seminar groups

Secretarial support required:

One full-time secretary during the conference Full copying and typing services for production of handouts and photocopies

Other facilities:

Refreshment facilities (coffee and light snacks to be made available at morning and afternoon coffee breaks)

You are willing to pay up to $1200 a day for use of the conference premises. For this price you would expect the following facilities to be included:

Use of audio-visual equipment, secretarial assistance, and use of the photocopier

You would not expect this price to include:

Food or beverages Copies of handouts amounting to more than 100 pages per day

As part of the complete conference package, you would hope to have all participants staying in the hotel, with a discount on room rates.

Appendix C

Appendix C

Task: Roleplay

Your group should discuss the situation for fifteen minutes. You should try to reach a satisfactory agreement.

A medium-sized hotel employs many women as part-time workers in its Housekeeping Department. These workers receive a low hourly wage, and do not receive any of the benefits of the full-time workers. For example, they get no holiday pay or hotel guest privileges, no sick leave, no extended health insurance, no bonuses, and no pension plan. Many of these employees have been working at the hotel for many years and are efficient and reliable workers. A group of these part-time employees has asked the Human Resources Manager to change their positions into permanent part-time jobs. This means that the workers will have job security plus the benefits of the full-time workers. At the same time, their schedules will still be flexible enough to allow them to take care of their family responsibilities. The Human Resources Manager says that the hotel cannot afford the cost of these extra benefits. Also, if the hotel is going to pay out full benefits, it can just as easily hire full-time workers. The Human Resources Manager has agreed to arrange a meeting with the General Manager and a representative of the part-time employees to discuss the issue.

Dose of the Discussion

The purpose of this discussion is for the group members to decide what, if any, action should be taken to satisfy the demands of the part-time workers.

Roles in the Discussion

General Manager Human Resources Manager Representative of the part-time employees